Patrick Caldwell

Recent Articles

Jeb Bush followed a time-honored tradition Monday morning, one set forth by past generations of sensible politicians contemplating a run for the Republican presidential nomination: He ditched his sane policy views to appeal to the far right. During a Today Show interview previewing his upcoming book, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution , Bush—the esteemed former Florida governor and older brother to the country's most disastrous president—said immigration reform should not include a path for citizenship. That's a sharp break from his past views, a full Mitt Romney-style pivot to right-wing ideology. Much like baby bro George W, Jeb has spent years shouting a clarion call that the GOP is on a path toward electoral doom unless they stop alienating Hispanic voters. He penned Wall Street Journal op-eds as recently as January advocating for citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Yet in his new book he writes , "It is absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system...

Flickr/republicanconference O n Tuesday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor swung by the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to offer yet another "rebrand" for Republicans—the latest in a string of efforts to reinvent the struggling party. Speaking on the top floor of AEI's office in downtown Washington, D.C., Cantor steered clear of culture-war issues and refrained from talk about lowering taxes, which has become the party’s sole policy prescription over the past several years. His speech—focused on education, workers' woes, and immigration—lacked details behind the broad goals he outlined. But Cantor's vision for the Aggrieved Old Party showed a shift in emphasis, a way forward for a party that has failed to convince voters that it has an economic vision for the middle class. The biggest news from Cantor's speech was his oblique endorsement of the DREAM Act. "A good place to start is with the kids," Cantor said while discussing the need for immigration reform. "One of...

Flickr/cursedthing I n late October, two weeks before the election, amid the glut of attack ads, a TV commercial appeared in Minnesota that grabbed everyone’s attention. It opens on former Governor Arne Carlson, a Republican, who is a familiar and beloved figure in the state, looking into the camera. “This voter-restriction amendment is way too costly,” he tells viewers. An image of $100 bills flashes to his right. Carlson’s jowls quiver as he solemnly shakes his head. An American flag hangs behind his shoulder. Fade and cut to Mark Dayton, the state’s current governor, a Democrat, on the right half of the screen. “And it would keep thousands of seniors from voting,” Dayton continues, his Minnesota accent especially thick. As he speaks, a black-and-white photo of a forlorn elderly woman appears. In a year when the two parties seemed to agree on little except their mutual distaste for each other, here was a split-screen commercial with a Democrat and a Republican, the only bipartisan...

The life of Julia at age 27 In early May, shortly after the peak of the GOP's war-on-women problem, the Obama campaign released a simple online infographic that inspired outrage from conservative commentators. Titled "The Life of Julia," the slideshow followed a hypothetical woman named Julia throughout various stages of her life in order to compare Obama's policies to the ones proposed by Mitt Romney. At age three, toddler Julia plays with a bead maze and enjoys the benefits of Head Start under Obama's America, while the infographic warns that Romney would cut Head Start by 20 percent. By age 27 the adult Julia is a web designer—a knowing wink to the young urban hipsterati loathed by conservatives—whose birth control is covered by her health insurance thanks to Obamacare's reforms, but would have lost those if Romney had his way. It was silly, simple fodder that should have faded quickly amid the deluge of media noise. Except conservatives took it as the symbol of all that is wrong...

Flickr/Gage Skidmore U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz Apparently every Democrat automatically despises the troops, even when those Democrats once volunteered to serve in the armed forces. It's a trope Republicans have pulled out ever since the Nixon years. The Obama era--replete with drone strikes, Libyan intervention, and the death of Osama bin Laden—has robbed Republicans of a bit of their bluster. But on Saturday Ted Cruz, the newly elected U.S. Senator from Texas, breathed new life into the old smear when he tarred two highly decorated former veterans. Cruz appeared in Washington, D.C., at a forum hosted by the National Review Institute, the non-profit arm of the conservative magazine. "We've got two pending nominations, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. Both of whom are very prominently [pause] less than ardent fans of the U.S. military," Cruz said to chuckles from the crowd. A quick refresher about the two men he claims somehow oppose the U.S. military. In 1966, secretary of state nominee John...